Abstract

Maintenance strategy selection (MSS) is one of the most critical decisions for safe and continuous operations. It is a key factor not only for reducing the maintenance cost, but also for achieving stable production rates without unplanned interruptions. There are different maintenance strategies implemented in the field and mentioned in the literature, each has both benefits and drawbacks for the production. Maintenance management have to make a decision of which strategy to follow. Such a decision need to be evaluated based on multiple criteria such as reliability, production loss, process safety, cost, environmental damage and others. The adoption of one maintenance strategy such as preventive maintenance for the whole plant can be seen as a proper solution to solve such a complex problem, but definitely not the most beneficial to the organization. Multiple criteria decision making process (MCDM) offers different approaches to help in solving such a complex problem. The use of analytical hierarchy process (AHP), one of MCDM approaches, in solving maintenance strategy selection problem at a natural gas processing plant is presented in this report. The plant is currently adopting timely based preventive maintenance strategy for all of the equipment. Six Different equipment were studied in order to evaluate five different maintenance strategies against three main criteria which are cost, equipment damage and applicability. AHP results showed that significant changes should be made to the current followed maintenance strategy, which would have a huge impact on the company’s resources and will generate cost savings in multiple areas as well as utilizing the company resources. AHP has proven to be an effective and flexible approach for solving complex decision making problems, as it helped the decision makers to simplify the problem into a hierarchy and prioritize the different criteria to reach an optimum solution for the proposed problem.

Department

Mechanical Engineering Department

First Advisor

Fahmy, Sherif

Committee Member 1

Fahmy, Sherif

Extent

94 p.

Institutional Review Board (IRB) Approval

Not necessary for this item

Rights

The author retains all rights with regard to copyright. The author certifies that written permission from the owner(s) of third-party copyrighted matter included in the thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study has been obtained. The author further certifies that IRB approval has been obtained for this thesis, or that IRB approval is not necessary for this thesis. Insofar as this thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study is an educational record as defined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) (20 USC 1232g), the author has granted consent to disclosure of it to anyone who requests a copy. The author has granted the American University in Cairo or its agents a non-exclusive license to archive this thesis, dissertation, paper, or record of study, and to make it accessible, in whole or in part, in all forms of media, now or hereafter known.

Publication Date

Fall 1-27-2020

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